


Gold Prison

by ivyspinners



Category: From Dusk Till Dawn: The Series
Genre: Backstory, Devotion, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-06
Updated: 2015-04-06
Packaged: 2018-03-21 12:15:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 594
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3691911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivyspinners/pseuds/ivyspinners
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere in the depths of the jungle, there is a temple.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Gold Prison

**Author's Note:**

  * For [margalo_streussal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/margalo_streussal/gifts).



> For streussal's [prompt](http://fluffyfrolicker.livejournal.com/60851.html?thread=2198707#t2198707), _The first time he looked at her he felt: everything will burn_ (Anais Nin)

Somewhere in the depths of the jungle, there is a temple.

He's not seen it; he's not been near it; there are whispers, though, a smattering of words he's on the cusp of understanding, rearranged into rumour or myth or legend. The natives speak of treasure, not quite beyond the circle of his hearing, and Carlos thinks, _Yes_.

It is not a fair exchange by any means, not to the natives, but the world owes him that much for toiling all those months on the ship, nearing the edge of starvation, and all the years before (years he rarely lets himself remember).

He wants the gold.

The murmur of voice rise, then settle, behind him. Carlos does not look back, and in truth, that's what saves and damns him.

 

 

The lighting is poor, the room filled with motes of dust. So much treasure, so much dust, and it's wrong because no one stopped Carlos when he walked inside--

Sun falls on her like poetry, across the richness of her skin, the thickness of her hair. The desolation in her eyes is all the prayers he never understood until that moment, because to trap the wind and the light with a collar around her neck is _unfathomable_. It is treachery; it is blasphemy.

There's been no guiding hand in his actions for a very long time, but this, this is wrong. Unbearably so.

 _Set her free_ , he tells himself, and does.

 

 

And does again, with blood hanging in the air like mist. He knows his men; they would have seen the gold without the softness, but Carlos could not. She cradles him in the aftermath, and Carlos knows he was right. He was right, and they are dead, and he cannot retrace his steps - only move forward.

 

 

Once, just two weeks ago, Carlos had left because he could not bear the feeling of dirt against his knees, but now he sinks onto them.

It chafes, just a bit. Not enough for him to move, when he sees the luminous surprise in her eyes. It is because of her that he can see them at all, for night has fallen, but his sight is no less keen.

"Why would you do it for me?" she asks, this woman without a name. Now that he has let go, she stands up, and there are bloodstains on her hand, but she does not seem to notice. The bodies around are no longer warm, and some of that blood is smeared across her mouth.

"Because it was you, or it was them," Carlos says.

"If it wasn't?" she asks. "If it was a little boy, and the stars spelled misfortune, and nothing else?"

He rises, too, takes her hand, and they step into the doorway of the temple, where moonlight washes out the world. She cannot take another step, so he remains there too.

"I," he says, "will always choose you."

 

 

Once, she would not have smiled at this. But she has been here for a hundred years. Blood is blood. It is spilled, and always will be, and she does not want to stay in this prison.

 

 

By the door of the temple, under that moonlight, Carlos asks, "Do the villagers keep you trapped?"

She wraps her other hand around his. Hers. Her action; her volition; her decision.

"Their fathers did," she says. "And their fathers, before them, for a hundred years and more."

 

 

The village, Santanico notices, which she can just see from one of the few windows in her prison of blood-rusted gold, is burning.

fin


End file.
